A handful of years ago I decided that I needed a career change. After being a nurse for almost 20 years it was time to do something a little different. I had spent a good number of years thinking about this upcoming career change and was being drawn towards becoming a dietitian. As soon as I went back to college to complete my degree I was bombarded with meal plan requests!

“You’re going to school to be a dietitian? Oh great. Can you make me a meal plan because I want to lose weight?”

In the years since graduating I can tell you it is almost impossible to create a meal plan for someone. At least one that they are happy with when you’re done.

Sure you probably have come across meal plans but how many changes did you make because you didn’t like something? Probably a good number.

Here’s why it’s so difficult …..

Everyone has different likes and dislikes. Trying to discover and work with all of them becomes extremely difficult.

Everyone has different eating schedules. Some people like a bigger breakfast while others might not have anything to eat until lunch. Those that travel to work may need to have easily portable lunch options while those who are at home during the day can cook whatever they want at any time. Some people are ok with eating the same thing more than once in a week and other hate the thought of eating leftovers.

If these variations weren’t enough there’s also cooking skill level, available time to prepare meals and those who hates cooking and wants to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible.

These are just a few of the many challenges with creating a meal plan. But what does this have to do with Chicken Zoodle Soup you may ask.

Over the years I’ve noticed that the people who have had the best success at meeting the health goals and losing weight were those who had a meal plan or were able to quickly prepare their meals. If it’s going to take too long to cook, you’re missing ingredients or you have no idea what to even make then it’s easy to fall back into old habits.

Those people who could prepare their own food and had some ideas about what to prepare were more likely to stick with a new way of eating. They didn’t come home each night with the same question…. what are we going to eat?

What if I told you there’s a way to achieve your weight loss goals without having to struggle with a meal plan that someone else made for you?

What if I told you there’s a way to solve the problem of having a missing ingredient from your recipe list quickly and easily?

What if I said you could easily learn how to make meals that didn’t rely on actual recipes and measurements to create your meals?

How is this even possible you might ask? How can you cook without a list of set ingredients AND the measurements for every item on the list?

I’ll tell you how….. by using a meal template.

What is a meal template?

A template is a pattern that can be followed again and again. You know what the end result will be because you’ve made the item before and know that if you follow the template that it will turn out well again.

Stop and think about pizza. You know the meal template for a pizza….. take your crust, top it with some sauce, add various topping, sprinkle on cheese and bake. It’s done the same way over and over again. So why doesn’t every pizza taste the same? Because they have varied the ingredients in the template. But the template is still the same over and over again.

How can a meal template help you?

Do you feel frustrated because you are trying to follow a recipe exactly but don’t like some of the ingredients or don’t have some of the ingredient’s available?

Knowing the meal template will help to ease those frustrations because you will quickly know how to replace missing ingredients or ingredients you don’t like with something you have available.

Think you will fail in making something delicious because you feel you don’t have the cooking skills needed?

Then a meal template can help to boost your confidence in the kitchen. The process of making the food item is the same process over and over again. Each time you are successful it will help to create more confidence in the kitchen. And, you’ll become quicker at making the meal too!

Don’t really like cooking?

Then working with a meal template can allow you to put all those prepped foods you find in the grocery store to good use. Let’s not forget about the variety of healthy frozen vegetables, rotisserie chickens and canned foods that can assist you in putting together a meal with a minimum amount of cooking.

Think you don’t have time to create a delicious, healthy meal at home?

Forget fast food, take out and frozen dinners. These days most grocery stores have recognized that people are looking for ways to save time and offer larger numbers of presliced, diced and chopped vegetables and more. Most grocery stores have a a variety of rotisserie chicken or pieces of chicken available. These can assist you in saving time in the kitchen.

Let’s dive into one of the easiest meal templates….soup!

This one is great for those who are trying to build their cooking skills, those who are short on time and those who just want something delicious to eat.

Making soup is probably one of the most fool proof meals out there besides making toast. It’s a bunch of ingredients cooked up in water (broth). You can vary the ingredients and it still ends up amazing. Don’t believe me? Perhaps you’ve read the children’s book stone soup? If not then I suggest you pick up a copy.

While the story is to teach children a lesson about sharing it perfectly illustrates creating soup.

In the story a man comes to a village and is hungry. No one will share any food with him so he sets up a large pot, fills it with water and puts a magical stone into it. A magical soup stone. This stone is able to take plain water and magically turn it into soup! The other villagers think the man is crazy when he says he’s making delicious stone soup from a magical stone.

As they watch him he tastes the water and tells the villagers that it’s good BUT it would be better with some onions. One of the villagers offers the man a few onions for the pot. They think he’s nuts but they want to see how this magical soup turns out. This continues on with him saying that it’s good BUT it would be better if he just had a bit of this and that. The villagers keep adding in small bits of whatever he has asked for. In the end the soup is delicious, filled with all kinds of good things and the villagers sit around enjoying it. Alone they too did not have much to eat but when they shared it created something wonderful. And this is the essence of soup.

Looking for a version of this story? Check out this one below:

Do not be afraid to make soup. You basically can’t screw it up unless you do one of two things.

Make it too spicy for your own personal taste.

Make it too salty for your own personal taste.

Nothing will ruin a meal faster then trying to eat something that is overly salted or one that is burning the taste buds off your tongue. Unless your into that sort of thing. I know several people like that but I am not one of them. Perhaps you aren’t either.

When adding salt or spicy/hot ingredients (jalapenos, hot sauce, hot peppers, etc) always remember to go slow and start out low (meaning start with a small amount).

Repeat after me…..go slow and start out low.

You can always add more as the dish or soup continues to cook. But once it’s in there you can’t take it back out. There’s no fixing a highly salted or over spiced dish.

Now with that soup warning (actually a warning for anything you might cook) out of the way let’s start building soup!

Chicken Zoodle Soup

Ingredients:

1 medium onion
2 stalks celery
1 carrot
1 zucchini made into zoodles (zucchini noodles) or 1 package purchased zoodles
2 big handfuls of chopped cooked chicken (about 2 cups)
4 cups of chicken broth or 1 – 32 ounce container of broth or 2 – 15 ounce cans of chicken broth
dried oregano and basil
salt and pepper

Preparing the soup:

Most meals are built in layers. How often do you see a food that is just seasoned with one thing? Like of building flavors like making a house. You don’t start out by building walls. Of course not. You first start out by making a foundation for the house to be built on. Cooking is the same. Build a foundation and then build the rest of the meal around it.

For soup you start off by making a base of aromatic vegetables. Aromatics are vegetables and herbs that are generally heated in oil when you first begin making a dish. They add deep flavor to the dish you are making.

What are these aromatic vegetables you might ask?

For this meal template I’m going to show you a basic recipe of Chicken Zoodle Soup. The aromatic vegetables for it would be onions, celery and carrots.

For this recipe you want 1 medium onion. If you have no idea of what medium is then pick an onion that fits in the palm of your hand. If you can close your hand around it then it’s probably a small onion. If you can partially close your hand then it’s medium and if your fingers just fit around it then it’s a large onion. Peel and dice the onion. Go with big bits or little bits. It’s all up to you.

You’ll need two stalks of celery. Dice this up too.

Take your carrot and slice it into small rounds.

I actually had carrot “chips” in my refrigerator. I went with one good size handful of those and cut them into small slices. See how you can begin to improvise with what you have on hand?

With the vegetables all sliced up place a small amount of oil in your soup pan. I’m not giving you an amount but I will say that when you pour it in the oil will begin to spread out and you want to stop when its about the size of a half dollar. This is probably about a tablespoon of oil. You can also cut a 1/2 inch or slightly larger piece of butter off a stick of butter. This will also be about a half inch.

Why no measurement? Because if you use slightly more or slightly less you won’t ruin the soup. And the idea here is to learn to cook without a recipe telling you every exact measurement. Eyeball it. You’ll be fine. Trust me on this.

Turn the heat on to about a medium flame and start heating up the oil or melting your butter. Once the oil begins to heat up or the butter begins to melt toss in the onion, celery and carrots.

Begin cooking them, stirring every minute or so. Within about 5 minutes the mixture will begin to smell quite nice. The oil will pull out the flavors from these vegetables so it blends in with the soup.

Add in the chicken broth.

The only reason why I included a measurement for this is because you don’t want to add so much broth that the soup becomes overly watered down. 4 cups is equal to a 32 ounce container of broth or about 2 – 15 ounce cans of broth if you have those on hand. An extra ounce or two won’t hurt. Multiple cups more however will water down the flavor.

Next add in the oregano and basil.

Cup your hand and pour some into the middle. You want a small pile (see the picture). This should be about a teaspoonful or slightly more.

If you don’t trust yourself then use a measuring spoon to see what a teaspoonful looks like in the palm of your hand. You’ll be using your hands to quickly measure out dry herbs in other meals. Test it out for yourself.

Remember that adding in slightly more of most herbs and spices won’t ruin the meal. The exceptions are salt, spicy herbs (such as red or cayenne pepper) and heavier spices such as clove. Too much of these can wreck a meal. But you’re safe with oregano and basil in this soup.

Add in the diced, cooked chicken. I had rotisserie chicken on hand so I used that. But any type of cooked, diced chicken will do.

Toss in the zucchini zoodles. I’ve found that fresh and frozen zoodles will begin to soften in about the same time. You don’t want them mushy. Just slightly softened will be good. I went with a package of frozen zoodles.

Once the zoodles are a bit soft your soup is almost done.

Put in a couple of grinds of pepper if you are using a pepper mill.

If you are using already ground pepper you want about half a teaspoon. Remember that trick with your hand and the oregano/basil? You can do that again but make the pile half as small. Try testing this out with a 1/2 teaspoon of measured pepper in your hand to see what it looks like.

You now want to taste it to check if it is salty enough for your personal tastes. Depending upon your chicken broth it might be salty enough. Or you may want to add more. I highly suggest adding salt a 1/2 teaspoon at a time until it is to your personal taste. Again, soup that is too salty is not enjoyable.

If you feel that your soup needs a bit more oregano and basil then add a small amount of each. This second time around pretend like they are salt. Add a bit and then taste it.

Start low and go slow.

Once you’ve added salt (and possibly other spices) to taste the soup is ready to be enjoyed.

If you’ve made it this far and found that you have a that you enjoy the taste of congratulations! You now have the basics to Chicken Zoodle soup.

Keto Chicken Zoodle Soup

Create your own zucchini zoodles or purchase already made zoodles (fresh or frozen) in your local grocery store.

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Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 15

Total Time: 25

Servings: servings

Calories: 265kcal

Ingredients

1 medium onion diced
2 stalks celery diced
1 carrot diced
Olive oil or butter
1 zucchini made into zoodles zucchini noodles or 1 package purchased zoodles
2 big handfuls of chopped cooked chicken about 2 cups
4 cups of chicken broth or 1 - 32 ounce container of broth or 2 - 15 ounce cans of chicken broth
dried oregano and basil
salt and pepper

Instructions

Dice the onion, celery and carrot.
If using a fresh zucchini make it into zoodles.
Chop your chicken.
Place your olive oil or butter a large saucepan.
Add the onion, celery and carrots. Saute until just beginning to soften.
Add in the chopped chicken, chicken broth, oregano, basil and zoodles
Continue cooking until the vegetables have softened.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Nutrition

Did you try this recipe?Before you go why not click the stars at the top of the recipe to rate it. This helps other readers to find this recipe since the recipe rating will encourage search engines, such as Google, to suggest it to others. Check out all the easy to make recipes at RemakeMyPlate.com!

Want to bump up the flavor or, for those on the keto diet, increase the fat content a bit? Why not top the soup with a bit of shredded parmesan cheese.

Want to see how to use this meal template to create other types of Chicken Zoodle Soup? Then check out this post here.

If you are looking for other low-carb/keto recipe ideas, be sure to check out our growing Recipe Index full of low-carb/keto recipes!

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